Key Question:

Set the goal to have every customer lead you to the next customer. This happens when you deliver perfect products and services.

Kevin McGinley, founder of McGinley Construction doesn't have to sell or market his business. He started very small in 1978 and today he has too much business. You might say, "He could be a lot bigger if he has a sales and marketing plan." Right, and we agree. But Kevin loves his business just the way it is.
Q: How does Kevin measure his success?
A: His goal is to do a seamless remodel job. He said he wants the owner to have to tell people that the job was done. He also wants the owner to feel good in the newly created space.

Think about it

What should your goal be with each customer so that you get word-of-mouth marketing?

Clip from: Job Creation In New Mexico

Meet Linda Brewer of Blue Dome Gallery in Silver City.

Southwestern, New Mexico: In this episode of the show, we go into New Mexico as guests of the Chamber of Commerce of Las Cruces and Silver City. When we asked them, "What is your biggest business problem?" both said "Job creation." Yet, when we asked, "Are there businesses that are creating jobs?" over 100 businesses were recommended!

So, we asked practically every business advocate in the State of New Mexico, "Would you take a look at this list and tell us who would you'd like to represent your state on national television?" It quickly became apparent that any businesses from that list of 100 would have been fine.

In this episode we visit with five businesses and try to learn why they are being so successful in creating work for others.

Get Word-of-Mouth Marketing

HATTIE: (Voiceover) Las Cruces was ranked by Forbes magazine as the number one small metro area to do business. Members of the Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce gather to share ideas.

JAN McCLURE: We're going to do a big push between now and then to get our numbers up.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) Kevin McGinley serves on the board of directors.

KEVIN McGINLEY: (Voiceover) It's a great place to visit. It's a great place to live, and that's why we're in a good position because we've had the staying power, as he has, and we get referrals. We have too much work. I started in '78 with, two cords, a level, a pickup truck and a saw.

KEVIN: Pretty early on, we understood that to make a decent living and produce more jobs, I knew I needed to hang up the tools and really manage. Well, we need to pull off one part for me, too, for the drain.

JERRY: Oh, that's right. We've got to put a drain down in there.

KEVIN: We want you to tell your friends we were here. We don't want them to tell you that you had a remodel or an addition done. As soon as the stucco ages a little bit, we want you to think it's been here since they built the house. The parapets match exactly, everything is tied into the house the way it was. We don't want to do it the simple way. We want to do whatever it takes to make it look like we weren't here before.

HATTIE: What is this edging?

KEVIN: This is a banding that will match the banding when it's covered with stucco. So that's how we match that thing in. That's exactly how that was built in 19-whenever. They built this house themselves, I don't know, 20 years ago or 15, 20 years ago, whatever it is. And they called us and the idea was to get a game room in this house. And so we did our design and took our photos, did our design, brought them in, `This is what we can see and what you can see how it's going to look.' And they loved it and I loved it. (Voiceover) This view is awesome.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) Kevin works with Jerry, his framing contractor, to solve a window installation problem. KEVIN: When they set their chairs in here, that fixed window between the two windows is just too high. It's blocking out too much of the view. We're just going to have to drop it down.

JERRY: OK.

KEVIN: We can maybe put a mark here, Jerry, to take this part of the mullion down six inches, and then we'll get back and take a look at that new profile there and make a decision here and maybe give them a call. We could even go a couple inches more if we wanted to. And people have the misconception that real estate always has to have a return. I said your house doesn't have a return all the time. Remodeling's not always going to have a return. It's going to have value. The clients here are going to spend a lot of time in this room. They won't spend much time in the rest of the house. They'll spend a lot of--their gathering time and the family times will be in this room.

HATTIE: ...have you worked with Kevin before?

JERRY: Yeah. Yeah.

HATTIE: Why do you work with him?

JERRY: Money. (BIG LAUGH)

KEVIN: Because Jerry actually worked for me on the first house I built in 1978. He did the trim work. He was a subcontractor then. That's when we first met. And we didn't do a whole lot together until about, what was that, 30 years ago? When was that? That was 25 years ago, yeah.

JERRY: Twenty-five.

KEVIN: And didn't do a whole lot together until about, oh, '96 or '7 or something. And we've been doing it exclusively ever since, but he's real creative, and we put up with each other, because remodeling is a tough business, so he does demolition for us. We can problem-solve together, and he's old enough, some of the houses we worked on, he'd built, so...